


Call Me Maybe

by MostlyAnon



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Horrible pop songs, abstract writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-13
Updated: 2012-06-13
Packaged: 2017-11-07 16:34:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/433207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MostlyAnon/pseuds/MostlyAnon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shepard sings silly pop songs in the shower and the blood of her enemies paints the drain pink. She was not made (but she was remade,) for this (specific reason.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Call Me Maybe

**Author's Note:**

> Seriously, listen to Call Me Maybe while reading.

Shepard sings silly pop songs in the shower and the blood of her enemies paints the drain pink. She was not made ( _but she was remade,_ ) for this (specific reason.) 

On a lost island of Hell, she wanders broken halls with a broken woman, (nature always has the final say and its savagery retakes all things left behind, be it a biotic or a pistol.) Jack talks of narcotics and killing, Zaeed confesses his disgust, but Shepard is silent, solving her own personal mystery. She was not made, but she _was_ remade. 

 

 

 

A mountain spectre: the enormous and magnified shadow of an observer, cast upon the upper surfaces of clouds opposite the sun. The Citadel turns silently in the heavens, as a synthetic speaks to _her_ of chaos and rebirth.

 

 

 

Now, she sings in the shower and dances in her socks, bouncing on the bed. Garrus laughs at her when he catches her. He catches her around the waist, dances with her, and never thinks of the bodies of their enemies, now footnotes in her chapter of the history books. He is happy just to have her-- the Alliance calls her Commander, Cerberus calls her Savior, but he is the only one to call her his.

They call her so many things. She is a paragon, a renegade, a soldier; she is ( _not_ ) any or all of these things. Soldiers are the pawns of fate and she has never been a pawn, (not even of fate;) she is a queen, cutting across chessboards in any way needed.

 

 

 

Traynor beats her at chess six times, but has the grace to only mention it whenever they see each other.

 

 

 

 

There was a queen once, who stood in the bloody mud before the might of an empire and knew only rage. She was laughed at, too, but she taught an empire fear. Shepard thinks of her whenever Harbringer promises pain. Pain is simple, pain is easy. Pain is just flesh fearing death (and fear of death is just fear of the unknown) and Shepard has already been dead.

 

 

 

The first time she kisses Garrus, she thinks about the dead. 

 

 

 

Spectre. Ghost or apparition. Sometimes an optical illusion. They call him Illusive, but she is the illusion. (If there had been a human Spectre before her, one that was truly good at the job, would any of them actually know it? Doesn’t history allude to it?) She is the perfect Spectre only once they take the title from her for working with Cerberus. (She does not chose this, though she does not fight it. Cerberus is no different from any other god and she has never been one to care for the games of gods, fate, fortune, or man.) They do not understand why she fights for Cerberus. (She will fight for _anyone_ , because she fights for _everyone._ ) 

 

 

 

Garrus tastes like the pine trees of (someone else’s) youth, like the slice of a knife through skin. His fingers are calloused, rough with claws, and cool against her skin. “I don’t have a human fetish,” he says, “But I might have a Shepard fetish.”

One more thing they share: she never found humans attractive, either.

 

 

 

 

They call him Joker because he does not joke. They call her Commander, but she does not command. They call him Archangel--

_and he is._

 

 

Garrus puts a slug through the eye of a marauder at five hundred yards, slams a new clip home, and takes out three husks before Shepard can turn. His laughter (and the dead aliens) warm her blood and make heat pool between her legs. 

 

 

She was dead and he is loyal-- since they first met, he has been her shadow, following her and keeping her six (clear for six hundred yards, or even a thousand if the wind is right and the gun is good-- it is always good, because guns do not kill people. _They_ do.) She was dead and he followed her, but she had the three headed dog to put her together and he only had her. They both see the cracks sometimes, where the glue won’t hold, like when he puts a fist through the mirror or she wakes up screaming.

 

 

 

Chakwas can heal her scars. Shepard looks into the mirror and sees mandibles, hardened plates, and a rocket’s kiss. 

Jack shows Zaeed _all_ her tattoos, the night before the Relay. Shepard had no use for them-- scars are tattoos with better stories.

 

 

 

She spreads herself across the galaxy, marks everyone with her touch. (The queen painted her subjects blue and they followed her out of love.) The Reapers fall dead, as cold and empty as the Citadel. (The queen killed a legion for each daughter and one for herself. Do not match pain for pain, death for death, but pay your debts tenfold. To truly value something is to extract dear price for it.) 

 

 

 

There is no pain, pain is only the fear of death and they have been dead. Shepard throws herself into the light, but Garrus falls with her. She is not a god and he is not an archangel; they are specters of themselves, waiting. (Metaphorically. Literally, she dies in the blast and becomes the midwife to a new species and he wakes up in the mud on a battlefield with everyone asking him if she survived.)

 

 

 

“Maybe she’s alive!”

Archangel looks at the glint of light across the cybernetics on his skin. Under his armor, unseen (except by the bullet with his name on it) markings warp and form a bullseye.

 

 

 

Shepard sings silly pops songs in the shower and the blood of their enemies paints Garrus’ skin pink.


End file.
